codename-pingu-blog

[codename-pingu-blog]

Let me tell you the story of Noa, the shining porpoise from the kingdom of Dolphins.

Zooming along foam-topped seas, young Noa would gleefully arc through the waters before watching sailors. As Noa would pant on the water’s surface, catching her breath, a distinctive birthmark shaped like a softened pink dotted streak, marking her left side, became visible. 

But it was also this little dolphin’s energy and fearlessness that set her apart from others, who mostly swam along in large groups, meekly observing the ocean floor from above.

Not Noa. Noa wanted to go everywhere.

She would occasionally dive into deep ocean caves, only emerging for desperate clumps of air. Often, she would jealously peek her elegant beak above the waterline, observing the industriousness of a human society she, for some reason, couldn’t be a part of.

For somewhere deep inside, Noa knew she was more. She could feel it in her every bone. Shards of energy would course through her veins, thoughts crying to be let out and expressed, as the energy of ten powerplants somehow found its expression in one smart, beautiful, and inquisitive creature.

Noa may have been a dolphin. But she didn’t much feel like one.

Noa felt like she belonged to the stars.

Sometimes, the calm of ocean seas and bright sunsets, clouds filled with dashes of red and yellow sunshine, would be disturbed by this dolphin’s repeated jumps. They seemed cute, her every move and look transmitting a feeling of beauty, grace, and innocence. They were anything but.

Her jumps to the heavens were vein attempts at reuniting with her home. Only giving up at the point of pure exhaustion, nearby fishermen ignorant of her noble intentions would laugh at the comically cute thrashings in and out of the water.

Had they seen her yearning, tired by her failure to fully bask in the sun’s light, they would have been filled with compassionate sadness.

One child however, brought along by his lonely fisherman father, quietly observed the animal in silence, noticing her emotive eyes as they glanced back to him.

Diving below, Noa angrily pressed her eyes shut, instantly gaining speed.

Her qualities, the endless emotion, this boundless energy made the world of water she inhabited feel alien. It also made Noa feel alone, socially mismatched with her fellow young dolphins. They condescended and banded against her differences, pointing or prodding her fine birthmark as she flushed with shame.

These qualities made her feel alien.

She remembered the mockery, the haughty looks, the concealed jealousy. Her body curved and whipped forward, tearing by surprised schools of onlooking fish, as some passing young dolphin friends warned her not to go beyond.

But little and tearful Noa streaked relentlessly across to the bottom of the ocean floor, that black and gaping abyss. Seeking to fill her own cavernous gap within, this endless expanse reminded her of the sky. Of that far-away place that strangely felt like home.

So as Noa grew, she would stay in the deep recesses of the ocean’s edge, as the darkness and exertion helpfully nourished her curiosity and energy.

There was also some life in the caverns beneath. Other dolphins, both boys and girls, that were similarly chilling about below. Their dangerous plays and adventures filled Noa with an excitement the water just below surface didn’t.

And most of all, Noa felt the darkness covered her differences, her birthmark, and all her other quiet shames.

Alas, all novelties fade. Boredom crept back in. And Noa began to look to her ocean floor dolphin friends, yearning to see if they felt the same way.

What Noa found was that some of them had strange eyes. Eyes that could question and dart around, filled with thought or passion. But these eyes were unsure, tinged with insecurity.

Yet a few of her other friends’ eyes terrified her. These bleak eyes were certain. Looking deep enough, and close enough, Noa saw that no fire, light or happiness could ever emerge from within.

She wondered what her eyes looked like. Noa trembled to think her eyes would appear as certain as those darkened wells.

One day, all posed along the inside of a cave, Noa’s boredom got the better of her. Curiously poking her nose around, the other dolphins took notice. They’d never tested the edges of their underwater abodes, preferring to rest in their ample middles.

Excitedly, Noa spotted a strange rock that, uncovered, gave way to a jumping sea of sand. With glee, Noa poked her nose inside, only to be sharply stung on the nose by a minuscule and embarrassed crab – a kind she hated – which quickly shot out of sight.

At once, the other dolphins roared with laughter. Even the cave’s obscurity couldn’t mask Noa’s shame.

Bristling with annoyance at these bitter reminders of her youth’s isolation high above, Noa quickly left the cave in anger. She wanted nothing to do with these idle beings, who lived in total ignorance of their own home.

She dashed deeper down the sides of the ocean floor, to the astonishment of the dolphins left behind. Nobody had dared to go so deep. Two of her friends, after a slight pause, chased after her yelling with caution.

But Noa was faster. Trained muscles whipped her body, columns of sand projecting outward as this grey and frustrated mass of energy tore through the earth’s underbelly. Her chasing friends wheezed with pressure, and seeing her become ever smaller in the distance, were forced to begin the long climb for air with feelings of dread.  

But Noa too was running out of breath. Dangerously sliding left and right, Noa eventually slowed to a halt and collapsed into the ground, mountains of water above her.

Was this it? Noa wondered. Is this how I die?

As she pondered her imminent mortality, something brushed past her cheek. It appeared to be a little underwater mushroom. Something compelled her to eat it.  

At first, she felt nothing. Then, feeling a little strange, Noa lay, wondering what would happen next. An odd, peaceful feeling began enveloping her, as Noa relaxed her muscles and started to let go.

Then the entire ocean floor, usually a dark morass of mystery, lit up with dashes of colours and flocks of multicoloured fish.

Noa couldn’t believe it! As if gripped by some warm onrush of energy, she began to swim in all directions, with a speed and rapidity last seen in her smallest youth.

Everything, all her youngest moments of yearning for the stars, of darting above, of escaping returned like an avalanche.

Noa rushed upwards, covering swathes of the ocean in seconds. This avalanche felt warm and deserving. It felt like her.

Breaking through the waters, Noa jumped high above nearby boats, fishermen grabbing their hats as they peered into this incredible sight.

Descending smoothly into the water, she picked up speed and swam rapidly in a downward circle before straightening and shooting upward again. This time, Noa momentarily closed her eyes as she felt the brushing of the wind against her ears, her cute beak, her perfect fins and her elegant tail. Beneath, the now young fisherman apprentice smiled.

The apprentice noticed in her eyes, which he stared in just as deeply, a deep calm, and a knowledge she had gone just gone higher than she’d ever reached before.

Diving in below, despite the excitement, Noa soon tired of all this movement and slowed some.

But a glint in the distance caught her attention. Swimming towards it, her heart brimmed with excitement. Could it be?

A mirror lay shining on the ground! Noa darted toward it, not believing her luck. The watery blues and sandy oranges still waved around her as Noa closed in to see herself for the first time.

What she saw was just intriguing at first. She timidly peeked at her mark, her heart then jumping in delight at its delicate shape and colour. And she also liked looking at her eyes - large, round, and blue. They were certainly beautiful.

And she wasbeautiful. Even in the depths she glowed.

And Noa sighed with relief when she saw no trace of that terrible certainty, that which seemed convinced of remaining in the darkness.

Looking deeper within, Noa observed something that reminded her of her youth. Of those nights spent hopefully observing the bright city lights or the starred heavens above.

Yes, Noa thought, my eyes almost look like they have stars! And so Noa drew closer to the mirror, agitated with excitement.

Then she saw it entirely, the entire constellations of the magnificent celestial skies, arranged neatly inside her eyes. Noa blushed in awe.

But something told her to go even closer. Noa wondered what could ever be more beautiful than this, seeing the stars through her eyes – almost like magic.

Noa was then transported somewhere else. Somewhere vast and endless. She’d never felt anything like it. She felt peace ringing through her ever fibre. Then Noa dared to open her eyes.

Constellations of stars, each perched at distance with clouds of circling planets like elaborate garments, the galaxy’s flowing mass a delicately intricate parchment of silk.

Noa stood before it all. Both lost in its immensity and united with it. Like a gigantic, infinite One.

Then, Noa was absorbed backwards, the universe closing in on itself. She was being pulled into a nearby star, inside of it, deeper and deeper.

She couldn’t scream.

An imperceptible moment passed. Peeking quietly, Noa stood before the mirror, trembling before her gleaming eyes.

She couldn’t believe it. Had all that been in her eyes?

But she knew. Noa floated peacefully, her dotted birthmark echoing the galaxy within.

Noa was filled with light. That was precisely the fascinating part.

All had been in her eyes.

Welling up, she remembered that feeling, of knowing she belonged to the stars, had been true.

But its secret hadn’t been in the skies, nor even the mysterious depths below.

The boundless expanses of beauty, its truest stars had been hidden inside her all along. And she looked at the dolphins above, perceiving they held stars too.

Years later, a hardened sailor still remembered this special animal, and that beautiful day.

Something about that day, that acute smell of fish, saltwater, and brine, made him think of his first day aboard his father’s ship. And of that solitary dolphin who yearned to jump higher than all the rest.

He was reminded that now, in whole expanses of the ocean, there had been spotted certain different dolphins.

Some reporters, with the backing of insistent local fishermen’s unions, had interviewed an astrologer who supported these mysterious stories. Dolphins whizzed around, swimming everywhere, spreading their love and kindness to all other dolphins in reach. He read they reminded other dolphins that, whatever their cravings, everything they needed they already had.

Not one to entertain such stories, the sailor nevertheless suspected the two were connected. He’d never ventured to think it aloud.

The aged man stood atop his fishing vessel, vested in a bright yellow overall, took a respite from this long day, calmly observing a wide sunset inflamed with pink, red and yellow clouds.

His boat rocked to one side very slowly. He frowned. Slowly, it rocked to another. The seas far beyond were perfectly calm. The man stopped looking at the skies and looked below. He gasped.

In all directions, there lay a mass of dolphins, quietly floating at the surface. All of them staring intently at a space right before the boat’s prow, totally unbeknownst to the sailor.

As if they had conspired to emerged quietly.

In the water before him now floated that very dolphin, a now very tired and aged Noa, but with those same special, deep and energetic eyes he’d spied as a child. Her now wrinkled mark adorned her tired side like a tasteful robe of rose.

Staring at these entrancing eyes filled with an endless and calming fire, the sailor realised they, filled with tears, were looking back at her brothers and sisters, her people, her water, her home – and him - one last time.

Noa then meekly dipped her still-impeccable nose into the water and began swimming in downward and upward circles.

Beginning apace, she began to reach an incredible speed, Noa’s body shining bright as her velocity reached astonishing proportions. All the other dolphins soundlessly watched or swam around in ecstasy, a gleaming and glowing mass of attention.

The man grabbed his cap and squeezed it intensely as he leaned over, mouth ajar, to watch the spectacle of lights beneath.

At once, she arced inwards and deep into the sea.

A few seconds passed.

Then, like a silver arrow shot from across the earth’s bow, she surged into the scarlet skies.

Noa shut her eyes forever. She smiled.

The awed sailor observed the dolphin go even further. Higher and higher into the skies she went, as Noa soared up through the elegant clouds.

Leaving a wispy trail behind, all the sailors in the sea and citizens of the city gaped upwards, as Noa crossed the sky. Those people who Noa had jealously observed for so long now enviously gazed up at this creature’s freedom.

Noa felt the buffeting winds whipping by her unstoppable body as she grinned, going so far into space she became only a speck.

The sailor, agitatedly pacing around his deck as he anguished to follow her path to the heavens, was filled with sadness when he noticed he’d lost her trace.

But suddenly, one solitary sparkle emerged from within the depths of the night skies, just where Noa had been, this new star’s birth reflected in the sole tear streaming down the sailors’ pockmarked cheek.

Where she would eternally rest among the celestial bodies.

As its brightest little star, shining slightly pink.